Twitch, a major live streaming platform, is now home to over 100 million active users heavily engaged in gaming, eSports, and a wide range of other interesting user generated content.

When it comes to actually broadcasting on the platform, users are largely left to fend for themselves. There are few standards for hardware or software, and getting a decent livestream​ running requires some degree of technical knowledge. Although consoles like Xbox One and PS4 have pretty decent integration with Twitch, any PC-centered streamers have to rely on whatever mix of 3rd party software and keyboard macros they can combine to go live. In their current form, existing setups can be pretty intimidating for entry-level broadcasters. Those that are using elaborate keybinding or controllers to run their broadcasts while they play are victims to a fundamental flaw in modern product design — they try to do too many things with a single peripheral.

Using rapid prototyping rooted in human-centered design, we quickly built and iterated on a solution for simple, effective Twitch broadcasting.